Basically, thermal expansion cannot account for the PSMSL data we see a lot here on Dredd Blog.

The overuse of thermal expansion is akin to other old "problems" some in the scientific community toiled with for years, such as "the tide gauge station problem" and "the European problem," neither of which were the problem.

Fig. 4

The problem was with the researchers of that time, whom Dr. Mitrovica indicated "didn't have a clue."

The graph in Fig. 3 shows three contributors: "displacement, ghost-water, and thermal expansion."

Their percentage of contribution now in the model, is 80.95% for "displacement," 13.95 percent for "ghost-water," and 5.1% for "thermal expansion."

Displacement is what happens when melt water flows from the land into the ocean, or ice bergs calve off glaciers and then fall into the ocean.

"The amount of sea level rise that comes from the oceans warming and expanding has been underestimated, and could be about twice as much as previously calculated, German researchers have said." - Sea level rise from ocean warming underestimated

These are all competent scientists who are laboring without first considering all of the relevant evidence available, and thus improperly attributing quantities of SLC to thermal expansion.

III. The Reality

The link to the IPCC page, in Section II above, also says "... thermal expansion ... is one of the major contributors to sea level changes during the 20th and 21st centuries" (notice that Fig. 3 lists it as the least of three factors).

Fig. 6

"Water is essentially incompressible, especially under normal conditions" (USGS), and its expansion is not sufficient to account for the degree of SLR being observed (Engineering Toolbox).

There is indisputable sea level fall (SLF) that thermal expansion cannot explain, because that SLF is not thermal, or any other type of compression for that matter.

3 comments:

Thanks Dredd! Great work! I'm happy to leave the calcs to you and the Cray-1 to establish the source and contribution of the 'inputs' in the lab. Meanwhile, I'll try and keep tabs on what is currently happening out in the 'field'.Oh my!http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/pacifica-cliff-collapse_us_56a6d5a8e4b01a3ed123bd2f?section=australia

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